Women in Paulo Coelho’s Fiction: A Feminist Critique of “The Valkyries” by Paulo Coelho

Abstract

This research investigates The Valkyries, a novel by Paulo Coelho from the feminist perspective. This novel is beautiful depiction of spirituality and how spiritual quest impacts the human relationships. This study explores the underlining prejudice and also disparities in the depiction of male and female characters of the story. Story is narrated in third person and writer describes his own spiritual journey and crumbling bond with his wife Chris. This research analyzes how writer has stereotyped the female characters in the dynamics of family relations and how writer has failed to reconcile the differences between males and females and how spirituality is made difficult to achieve for a woman in a sexist world created by the writer. This study uses Elaine Showalter’s Feminist Critique to analyze the text and examines the main characters and their relationship with each other to unravel the prejudice towards women. This study will benefit us in knowing how words are responsible for creating the sexist world, we are living and how their effects are for more pervasive in creating toxic world for women and how can we improve the representation of women in novels relating to spirituality and quest to help end the sufferings of women.